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Crisis Text Line launches across Canada

Youth across the territory will now be able to text for help as Kids Help Phone recently launched a crisis text line across the country.

The Crisis Text Line is available 24 hours a day to anyone that has a phone with SMS services. Once young people text 'talk' to 686868 they will be connected with a trained volunteer and their conversation will be monitored by paid professionals.

“Kids help phone has been around for almost 30 years providing support to young people across Canada. What we know is that our services weren’t always accessible to all young people. Young people might not have the privacy to make a phone call or the bandwidth to use live chat services,” said Alisa Simon, vice president, service innovation and chief youth officer.

The service launched as a test project across Manitoba in February before going live across the country. Simon said the results of the pilot project were positive with 87 per cent of kids saying they felt less stressed, more hopeful and more confident.  Eighty-five per cent were satisfied with the service they received and 79 per cent said if they had not texted in for help they wouldn’t have reached out for help at all.